Concentration is what you do to oranges!!! Everyone, please read!!!!!

Issue: 12

June 2009

Concentration is what we do to oranges

Several times now, I've had occasion to meet with groups of practitioners whose practice is based on focusing attention on an object or observing thoughts and sensations or watching the breath. They frequently report difficulty, a kind of catch 22: either the effort they make in concentration works against stability or they lose clarity when they try to relax. They are usually trying to control their experience, to make it conform to certain expectations of how meditation should be. All forms of practice that involve such effort, i.e., "I am doing something", inevitably reinforce that sense of separation from experience that arises as "I".

Part of the problem is the word concentration. It has, unfortunately, become an accepted translation for the Sanskrit samadhi, a choice that was made about 100 years ago before many Westerners had much experiential understanding of Buddhism. And it sets up expectations, always a problem in meditation practice.

Samadhi denotes a deep level of attention, usually accessed through some form of meditation. In samadhi, it is said that the mind joins with the object of attention. But this union is not brought about by concentration on the object. That just squeezes the mind. It comes about by resting in the experience of the object.

When I suggest in these groups that, instead of concentrating or observing or watching, they just rest and open to what arises, they have a very different experience. The sense of "I" subsides naturally and they come to rest in experience, not separate from it.

We truly rest only when there is no enemy: we include everything that arises in experience, excluding nothing. We have to build the capacity to do this, of course, but we can build that capacity through resting and opening, not concentrating or focusing.

With best wishes,

Ken

For a slightly expanded version of this note, please go to my blog.